Probation

Mrs. Mallory came into her drawing-room twenty minutes before the dinner-hour, and found her son already there, alone, already dressed, and stretched, in an attitude of extreme laziness, in an arm-chair by the fire.

There was likeness between the mother and son—strong likeness; and there was also, what most people forget in comparing relations with one another, strong unlikeness. Mrs. Mallory was an elegant-looking and a young-looking woman. She had an impassive, pale face, with thin lips and a high nose; pale, flaxen hair, without a grey streak in its glossy abundance; and the elegant trifle of lace and feathers which she wore upon it made her look still younger and handsomer. She was dressed in pale lavender silk and white lace, and she looked a very handsome, prosperous person, as she came in, casting a glance at Sebastian—a sharp, keen, calculating glance. Mrs. Mallory loved power, and had long exercised it; she did not realise that her son had grown from a boy into a man since she had known him. She had the lowest possible opinion of the natural penetration of men; and circumstances had fostered that impression. There is a great deal in having once lived for a term of years in close intercourse with a person very decidedly one’s inferior in intellect, as in the case of Mrs. Mallory and her late husband. There is nothing like it for giving one an overweening idea of one’s own capacities, and for fostering an attitude of contemptuous tolerance towards the opinions of every one else. Mrs. Mallory’s experience of her husband had entailed, as one of its indirect sequences, that she was completely deceived now by the lazy, languid manner of her son. In this most agreeable of convictions, that of mental supremacy over the rest of the company, let her tranquilly abide, until her hour of disillusion arrives.

‘Mother, it is too absurd that I should have to go about representing myself as your son! Couldn’t you pass as my sister?’

‘Nonsense! Where is your friend?’

‘Dressing, I suppose. He was greatly excited at hearing that a young lady was expected to dine with us.’

Mrs. Mallory had some remarks to make à propos of the young lady, but she deferred them for a moment in order to inquire,

‘What have you been doing all day?’

And she placed herself in an easy-chair opposite to his, and held a feathery screen between her face and the fire.

‘I have been, like a good little boy, attending to my lessons,’ said her son, lazily.

‘Ah, don’t speak in parables! I have forgotten how. In this dreadful place every one says the most disagreeable things they can think of, in the most disagreeable way they can think of, and then call it being honest and candid. And if you can contrive to drop a few h’s, and speak in a broad Lancashire dialect at the same time, you are thought very honest and candid indeed. I detest the place!’

‘Do you really, mother? I wonder you have remained here so long.’

‘I have tried to do my duty, Sebastian, to you and your property. A woman must make up her mind to sacrifice herself—a mother above all others.’

‘I am infinitely obliged to you, mother, but I trust that now you will have a long and complete rest. I am going to learn my business——’

‘Very proper, but I think it will take you some time. With your habits, I am afraid you will find it a frightful bore.’

‘Do you know my habits, mother?’ he inquired in the very quietest of voices.

Mrs. Mallory looked at him in some surprise. As a matter of fact, she did not know his habits in the very least. But, looking at him as he lounged in his easy-chair, with the newspaper across his knees, she said within herself, and prided herself upon her discernment,

‘His father all over: weak and idle, though he has more surface quickness. I don’t think I shall have much trouble with him.’

‘At least I know, dear, that your habits have not been those of Thanshope business men. But I suppose your first object will be to go over the works and see your people?’

‘I have been over the works, and have seen my people, and spoken to them.’

‘When—why did you not tell me?’ she asked vivaciously, and with no little vexation. ‘You should not be so impetuous, Sebastian.’

He laughed.

‘The first time I was ever accused of impetuousness. It shows indeed that you don’t know my habits.’

This was annoying, though it was impossible to complain about it.

‘These people will not bear to be treated unceremoniously, though they are such bears themselves.’

‘I am not aware that I did treat them unceremoniously.’

‘What did you say to them?’ she asked, curiosity getting the better of vexation. ‘I wish you had not been so hasty. A speech of that kind requires both consideration and careful management I hope you did not commit yourself. They are such frightful people for taking up one’s most innocent remarks and construing them into something quite different from what one intended.’

Mrs. Mallory spoke feelingly, as if from experience.

‘Are they? Well, I don’t know that I committed myself to anything from which I should wish to back out later. Indeed, I am not a fellow who is given to backing out of his promises—but then I make so few,’ he added, thoughtfully. ‘I simply told them I was afraid there were bad times coming, and that we must stand by each other in them. And I said a few words on politics.’

‘My dear boy! how foolish! Excuse me, but it was. They are rabid Radicals, and have a prejudice against you already—one of their horrid, narrow-minded prejudices, and to mention that you were a Conservative would certainly not improve your situation.’

Sebastian looked a little surprised.

‘How odd it is! Why should I tell them I was a Conservative when I am a Radical? I spoke the truth of course.’

Not Mrs. Transome herself could have been more horrified at Harold’s declaration of his views than was Mrs. Mallory at this avowal by her son. She forgot to shade that complexion, which was not as the complexions of other women of six-and-forty. She laid her screen down, sat bolt upright, without the pretence of any amiability in her expression, and said sharply,

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’

‘I am truly sorry that I cannot oblige you by feeling so.’

‘You have no respect for your father, or your grandfather—for any of your forefathers,’ said she, sullenly. ‘Every man here who can boast of a grandfather, much more a man of good old family like yours, ought to be a Conservative out of pure self-respect. No! You have no respect for your ancestors or for yourself.’

‘Mon Dieu! I think I have as much respect for them as they deserve. Do you think ancestors are really of much use? But at least I have more respect for their memories than to imagine that they would wish me simply to sit down and hobnob with the first opinions that happened to be offered to me. Since I have inherited my name and my tendencies of mind from them, I must also have inherited my brains and my reasoning powers from them. I have an inquiring mind, a thing, my dear mother, which is not spontaneously generated, but developed.’

‘That is wicked nonsense, Sebastian. I won’t allow it.’

‘But you will allow me to explain my opinions to you, I am sure. That is always better, and saves so many misunderstandings.’

‘I see without explanation that you are a renegade to your fathers, and have degraded yourself to the level of these horrid, insolent Radicals; yes, to the level of these grasping, dirty, presuming work-people. I hate them, Sebastian; I cannot tell you how I hate all Radicals. How can you refuse any of the demands of these odious people now, professing, as you do, their own opinions?’

‘I don’t know what their opinions may be, I am sure. Probably not at all the same as mine. But I was going to mention that, in my quite early youth, I once read a little sentence which made a deep impression upon my mind. It ran thus: “Those who believe that heaven is what earth has been—a monopoly in the hands of a favoured few, would do well to reconsider their opinion; if they find that it came from their priest or their grandmother, they could not do better than reject it.”’

‘I call that impiety,’ said she, her lips tightening.

‘Allow me to finish,’ said he, courteously. ‘I read between the lines of that little remark, and applied the principle contained in it to a great many other things beside those mentioned in the text; and the result of my continued use of that principle, as a test of institutions, opinions, and customs, has been that I am a Radical.’

‘It is an odious and an impious principle,’ said Mrs. Mallory, with cold and bitter anger in her voice, ‘and it is a principle to which I will never give my countenance.’

The shock had been not a small one of finding that Sebastian called himself by the name she hated, as the formula of the sum of the opinions of Thanshope—Radical. But a yet greater shock was that of finding, that though he seemed so soft and pliable, spoke so indifferently, smiled so languidly, yet that she could no more bend him, nor apparently impress him, than she could stem the incoming tide of the ocean.

Sebastian had risen, and was standing by the mantelpiece. Mrs. Mallory glanced at him once, sideways, and caught his eye. That was annoying in itself: it vexed and angered her because he was smiling.

‘I am sorry you don’t like it, mother,’ he said quite pleasantly and cheerfully, but not in the least apologetically; ‘and yet, do you know, considering the letters you have had from me, and my perfect frankness as to the society I have most sought and enjoyed, I think you might have been prepared for it, even if I never explicitly stated my convictions.’

This was also true. He had a most annoying way of being in the right.

‘Convictions? Oh, I dislike that talk about convictions. When people want to annoy their best friends, they call their conduct the result of convictions.’

‘The impertinence of circumstances is certainly very great sometimes,’ assented Sebastian, leaning against the mantelpiece, and she, as she tapped her foot impatiently upon the floor, would hardly have been flattered to find that he was thinking:

‘I must let her rail against it until it begins to be tiresome—perhaps she may see the wisdom of stopping before then. I suppose one must make allowances for the disappointment of a woman whose prejudices (or convictions?) have been offended; but it would be wasting words to reason with her about it, and soon, I suppose, she will learn to accept the circumstances and make the best of it.’

He had no wish or intention of being disrespectful. Simply, he had ‘beaten his music out’ with more difficulty than any one knew, save himself, and was mildly surprised to find that the resulting harmony, which sounded not ill in his own ears, should cause his mother such shuddering, should fall so discordantly upon her perceptions. He had no more idea of interrupting the flow of that harmony than he had of sharing his ample estate with all the paupers in Thanshope.

Fortunately, at this juncture, Hugo came into the room, his odd, original young face looking still more peculiar in contrast with his careful evening dress, and before many words had been exchanged ‘Miss Spenceley’ was announced.

Sebastian turned, with the story of Frederick Spenceley and his already conceived contempt for him strong in his mind, to confront Frederick Spenceley’s sister. His glance softened as it fell upon the girl advancing towards his mother.

Had he wandered through all the cities of Europe and seen their lovely women, in order to come home and find in a provincial manufacturing town a daughter of the people more beautiful than any of them?

‘Helena, my love, let me introduce my son, who has arrived sooner than I expected. Sebastian, Miss Spenceley.’

A profound bow on his part, and a rather careless, not very sophisticated inclination of her beautiful head on hers, was the result of these phrases of politeness.

‘My son’s friend, Mr. von Birkenau,’ was then introduced, and received the same notice exactly, a notice graceful and even dignified, because she could not help all her movements being graceful and dignified.

‘Like my daughter,’ Mrs. Mallory had said, and as she spoke to Helena Spenceley her voice assuredly took a tender accent; she glanced over the young lady’s costly dress, and smoothed down a lace ruffle with the affectionate familiarity of a very intimate friend or much-loved relative.

Miss Spenceley remained standing on the hearthrug, talking to Mrs. Mallory—a lovely, noble figure, tall, slim, and shapely, with the exquisite elasticity of perfect health in every line.

‘Splendid!’ said Sebastian, in his own mind; and splendid expressed her appearance and her character both. From her great dark, soft eyes, her dusky hair, in its delicate unruly little rings and tendrils, her ripe red lips, set in a delicious curve of mirth, frankness, and wilfulness, down to her rich dress and sparkling rings, she was all splendid, without being in the least vulgar.

‘Dear child, what a long time it is since I saw you!’ said Mrs. Mallory.

‘Yes. I have been busy. How nice this fire is, Mrs. Mallory. I do believe we have not had one at our house yet. Perhaps it is lighted on your behalf?’ she added, turning to Sebastian with a somewhat malicious smile.

‘Mine? Not so far as I am aware. What makes you think so?’

‘You have been living in warm countries lately, and Thanshope is not a warm place, but one of those towns where we have to use a lot of coals to make up for the want of sunshine!’

‘Yes, indeed!’ said Mrs. Mallory, shivering.

‘I have not had time to miss the sunshine, or to enjoy it, if there had been any, since I came,’ said Sebastian, his glance dwelling almost involuntarily upon her as she stood there, her eyes flashing back the firelight, and looking herself (he thought) like some bright living flame, or some tropical flower.

He could not understand her. There was nothing vulgar about her; her voice was pleasant and, though distinctly northern in its clear accent, was not in the least uneducated in its pronunciation of words; she had ease, grace, self-possession of carriage; apparently she was devoid altogether of self-consciousness; all of which things were surely signs of good breeding; and yet she was not in the least like the many well-bred girls whom he had met in society up and down the world—in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and other places. He wondered what she could talk about, and whether she talked well.

Dinner was announced, and he led her into the dining-room. Hugo von Birkenau was talking with much animation to Mrs. Mallory, as was his wont, though she did not appear to find him a very interesting companion.

Helena Spenceley, suddenly turning to Sebastian, said,

‘I know quite well where you have been. I have followed your course with the greatest interest Mrs. Mallory used always to tell me where you went, and sometimes read me bits of your letters.’

‘Did she? I wish I had known.’

‘Do you? Why?’ she asked, looking at him with a certain bright attentiveness, and waiting with evident interest for his answer.

Certainly she was not like other girls. Another girl would have known directly that he meant a kind of vague compliment by his aimless phrase; but she said ‘Why?’

‘If I had known, perhaps I might have written rather more carefully considered epistles to my mother,’ he said, and felt that it was, and sounded, a lame reply.

‘That would have been a pity, for the sake of a person you had never seen and did not know,’ she said, the smile fading from her face.

Sebastian felt he had made a bad beginning. It began to be rather dreadful, when she went on quite seriously,

‘Do you mean that if you had thought your letters were read aloud you would have made them into set compositions to please an audience?’

‘I think it is a matter of no importance whatever. Letter-writing is not my forte. I am too lazy.’

‘Oh, they were very interesting letters,’ said Helena, naïvely. ‘But how can you talk about being lazy! If only I had had such chances!’ She shook her head.

‘I should think you had the chance of doing whatever you pleased,’ he said, smiling.

Helena did not respond to the smile. Her face, intensely expressive, darkened visibly. Her eyes sank.

‘No,’ said she, coldly. ‘You are quite mistaken. Whatever pleasures and enjoyments I have had in my life have been procured for me by the kindness of Mrs. Mallory. She has been so good to me!’ She looked at him with eyes tragic in the earnestness of their expression.

Sebastian, glancing down the table, saw that Hugo’s eyes were fixed upon her in a perfect trance of admiration.

‘Then you have never been abroad?’ said he.

‘I—no! I have been nowhere except to London once or twice—oh, and to Brighton with Mrs. Mallory. I don’t want to go anywhere.’

‘You are such a home-bird?’

He saw immediately that he had asked an unfortunate question. The blood rushed over her face as she replied, again coldly,

‘Oh no! I think all that stuff about “home, sweet home,” and that, is the most wearisome nonsense imaginable. I hate it.... Did you study the position of women at all when you were abroad?’

Sebastian looked at her. She was perfectly grave, serious, and judicial. The ‘Woman Question’ had not been forced so far to the front in 1861 as in 1878, and Sebastian was proportionately surprised to hear that question from so young, rich, and beautiful a woman as Helena Spenceley.

‘I’m afraid I was rather remiss in that respect. But one sees their position without studying it, I think.’

‘And what do you think about it? Is it what it ought to be? But that is a foolish question. It is not what it ought to be, anywhere. It never will be what it ought to be, until women themselves rise and refuse any longer to submit to their own degradation. Don’t you think so?’

‘Really I am afraid I have not thought much at all upon the question.’

‘I suppose the idea has not yet penetrated to France and Germany. It will have to come, though, sooner or later. The German woman, for instance—is she in bonds, or emancipated?’

‘As how?’

‘Is the German woman the slave of the German man, or has she a position of her own?’

A malign spirit took possession of Sebastian. Mrs. Mallory and Hugo were both listening to the discussion, Mrs. Mallory with a shade of anxiety on her face. Sebastian, after a pause, as if he were profoundly considering the question, said,

‘I should say that she combined both those conditions—that she was very decidedly the slave of the German man, and at the same time had a distinct position of her own.’

‘Really! I wish I had brought my note-book. Pray explain!’

‘The German woman’s thoughts are, if I may use such an expression, directed manwards, Mann being, you know, her word for husband. Her thoughts, then, are directed Mann-wards from her earliest youth—from the time when she begins to go to school....’

‘Horrible!’ said Helena, her eyes fixed in grave earnest upon his face, so that his gravity was sorely tried. ‘Horrible! Well?’

‘I don’t know how much or how little true the report maybe about her beginning in early youth to prepare her trousseau.’

‘Disgusting!’

‘But she hears all around her and all her life long conversations on the subject of matrimony.’

‘The end and aim of her existence, poor thing!’ said Helena, with a pitying smile. ‘Go on! you have studied the subject almost unconsciously, as every thinking man must.’

‘If she reaches the age of one-and-twenty, unmarried, she begins to wonder what the reason can be of such a thing, and her friends, too, begin to speculate about it....’

‘Naturally!’ said Helena, her eyes flashing and her colour rising, while Hugo looked preternaturally solemn, except for a gleam in the depths of his eyes, and Mrs. Mallory’s face wore a puzzled expression. ‘Naturally—she is sold, disposed of before her reasoning powers are developed. It is very deplorable. Well?’

‘But very generally she is married at or before that age, and then——’

‘And then?’ echoed Helena, waving away the butler’s offer of wine and leaning eagerly towards Sebastian. ‘And then—what is her life afterwards, Mr. Mallory? Tell me that!’

‘A long course of bondage to husband, children, domestic affairs, and social exactions.’

‘Hideous!’ murmured Helena. ‘What a sad, sad fate! Did you not burn with indignation every time you witnessed it?’

‘I—I——’

‘Ah! you did, I know, or you could not have described it so graphically. And now you will consider the subject, I don’t doubt, and you will see it in its true light. But you said the German women had also a distinct position of their own. How do you account for that?’

‘They have. The very fact of their bondage gives them a sort of distinguishing rank. They have been accustomed to it for so long, that now they glory in it. If you were to attempt to inspire them with your enlightened notions, they would probably scoff at you; you would appear as dark to them as they to you.’

Helena looked at him with such intense earnestness and expressiveness, that Sebastian began to feel somewhat embarrassed.

‘What an odd girl she is!’ he thought. ‘And how, in Heaven’s name, shall I get out of this mess that I have got into? I can’t let her go without offering some explanation.’

‘You grieve me,’ said Helena, in a sorrowful voice. ‘I had no idea it was so bad as that.’

Here Mrs. Mallory rose in a dignified though perplexed silence, and they all went into the drawing-room.

Arrived there, Sebastian, as in duty bound, asked Helena to play.

‘I don’t play at all,’ said she. ‘I can’t waste my time upon practising.’

‘Waste your time upon music?’ he asked, wondering whether that were one of the strong-minded female ideas too.

‘I have not the power of interpreting music; it would be vanity and vexation. So I never try. I can just accompany myself in one or two little songs; that is all.’

‘Then you will gratify us by singing one of the said little songs, I am sure.’

Helena went to the piano, sat down, and began to play an introduction. Sebastian looked at Hugo, with ever so slight a shrug, and they waited. It was ‘Kathleen Mavourneen.’ But the faces of the two critics changed gradually from an expression of painful doubt and suspense, to pleased surprise, pleasure, and a broad smile of delight. A pure, strong, fresh, sweet soprano voice rang out. There was no attempt at airs and graces; the severest simplicity and the most unaffected tenderness sounded in every one of the true, clear notes.

Mrs. Mallory watched her son covertly, but intently, and saw that Helena’s music had power to move him. The languor disappeared from his expression; his head was raised, and his lips parted. Song and songstress engrossed his attention.

Mrs. Mallory’s countenance gradually cleared.

As Helena finished, both Hugo and Sebastian sprang forward, with thanks and entreaties for something else.

She paused a moment, and then sang:

It is a sweet, tender, quaint old song, and Helena sang it almost perfectly. She rose when she had finished, and, looking at Hugo, asked him if he did not play.

‘Yes,’ said the boy, flushing; ‘but after your voice——’

‘Don’t refuse, Hugo,’ put in Sebastian.

And Hugo seated himself and began to play German music—deep, strange, and expressive, con amore.

‘But he is a musician—he must be!’ said Helena, turning, with wide-open eyes, to Sebastian.

‘Most certainly he is. I believe he has it in him to make a great name as a composer.’

‘How delightful to have a talent, a genius, that gives pleasure to yourself and every one else! Is he a very great friend of yours?’

‘Yes; he is my ward. I have been his guardian now for four years.’

‘Ah! if he can compose, he has a life before him—a career!’ sighed Helena; and her eyes looked dreamingly and longingly before her.

Sebastian felt strangely attracted to the girl, but as yet he felt he knew her too little to know whether he should even like her. The explanation he had to make would serve to bring out some fresh point in her character.

Mrs. Mallory was knitting fleecy-white wool by the fireside, and seemed able to give up Helena’s society on this occasion. Hugo’s fingers wandered on in one melody after another—melodies like those which Adrienne Blisset’s fingers most readily wove.

Helena herself gave Sebastian the opportunity he wished for.

‘About the German women and their position?’ she began.

He laughed a little.

‘I had no idea you were so much in earnest,’ said he. ‘It was a joke.’

‘A joke!’

She turned to him in amaze.

‘In this way. What I said was quite true—that is the the position of the German women; but—but—I thought you would see it—isn’t it the position of all civilised women? Are not Englishwomen in the same case? I am sure I think so. I don’t see how any woman who marries can expect anything else.’

The colour rushed in an angry flood over her cheek, and brow, and throat, as she realised that he had been politely making merriment of the subject, and that the very point of the joke lay in her having taken it all as solemn, thoughtful earnest.

‘You were making fun of me and of the cause: that was very polite of you!’ she said, her eyes flashing upon him in anger.

‘I am very sorry,’ he said, with a provoking smile. ‘I was only describing the position of women in general in a picturesque manner. It depends upon the feelings of the speaker as to the colouring he gives to his descriptions.’

‘I see,’ said Helena, ‘you are just like any other selfish, unthinking man—not in earnest. But I am! I think that cause is worthy the devotion of a woman’s life; and it is what I intend to devote my life to.’

‘Don’t!’ said Sebastian, involuntarily.

But Helena had been roused to real anger.

‘Compliments and pretty phrases are all we ever get from men on that subject,’ she said. ‘All my life I have been sure it was women alone who must work their own emancipation; and after what you have said to-night, I am doubly sure of it. Oh! it is horrible to think that a woman is not even allowed to have a serious thought upon her own condition; or if she says she has to a man, he laughs at her! There is one consolation—the laugh dishonours him, not her.’

‘But, my dear Miss Spenceley, do let me explain. Do you think you really have had any experience in such things? Many most accomplished women think quite differently; the nicest girl I ever knew—I mean the cleverest and best-informed young lady I ever knew—thought very differently.’

‘Perhaps that was one reason why you thought her so nice. I am sure she had not been brought up in the school of adversity and experience.’

‘Pardon me! She had been brought up in that school alone, and in no other. I fancy she had attended more of its classes than you.’

‘I don’t see how you can know what school I have attended,’ said Helena, the same sudden, cold, sharp look coming into her eyes and over her face. ‘And I do not think much of any woman who is indifferent upon that subject.’

‘I did not say she was indifferent,’ said Sebastian; and Helena, looking at him, saw that he was, in imagination, in some very different place from his mother’s drawing-room: perhaps thinking of ‘the nicest girl I ever knew.’

‘Don’t you think,’ said he, breaking the angry silence which on her part had supervened, ‘that the best way of securing your ends would be for men and women to work together, and——’

‘I don’t believe in men’s help in that matter. They are too thoroughly and naturally selfish ever to give real help in such a cause.’

‘Without help you can do nothing,’ he said composedly.

‘Can we not?’ she replied, setting her lips.

‘I don’t think that any number of women agitating, and making speeches, will answer the purpose. The sort of help I mean is such as would be given by, for instance, husband and wife practically showing how much they had the subject at heart, by working together and giving in their lives a specimen of their doctrines. It is not a question that will ever be settled by public meetings and petitions. It must grow and evolve, as other social conditions evolve—gradually!’

‘Husband and wife!’ said Helena, with a sneer—a sneer so bitter and unmistakable as to startle him. ‘That is a relation I have put entirely out of my calculations in this matter. I don’t believe in the existence of husbands who will give up, and help their wives. I have been able to study the subject remarkably well....’

(‘Mr. Spenceley sits upon Mrs. Spenceley, and the redoubtable Frederick sits upon them all,’ thought Sebastian.)

‘And the women who wish to improve their condition must put all such foolish ideas aside, and feel, as I do, that they can never be tempted into accepting any such delusory fancies.’

‘You feel that?’ he said, smiling.

‘Yes, I do—to the bottom of my heart.’

Helena spoke with emphasis; her eyes flashing, her cheek flushing. She was very handsome; she was more, splendidly beautiful; ‘but how untrained, how unreasonable,’ thought Sebastian. ‘How different this heat and prejudice from the calm, well-balanced judgment, the clear, philosophical mind, of that other girl, scarcely older than herself. This raging against the weakness and selfishness of men was very short-sighted, and rather vulgar, was it not?’ All he said, however, was,

‘I am glad you feel so independent. It must give you a sense of superiority.’

‘I never think about such things. I call it vanity to be always wondering whether you are superior to other people.’

She rose and went across the room to talk to Mrs. Mallory. Very soon she was discussing the merits of a new knitting-pattern, just as if no such thing as women’s rights had ever been heard of.

When she had gone, and Hugo had retired, after fervently expressing his opinion that she was the loveliest, most fascinating, schönste, herrlichste person he had ever seen, Mrs. Mallory introduced her intended remarks upon her favourite. Did not Sebastian think her very lovely? Yes; she certainly was an exquisitely beautiful girl. And intelligent, too? Undoubtedly; but there was a certain sameness about her animation. She seemed to rave a good deal upon one subject.

‘If you knew her surroundings, Sebastian, you would not be surprised, I assure you. Such a brother! With her high spirit, and rather strained ideas as to what is honourable and gentlemanly, it must be a bitter cross to her to have that brother constantly disgracing himself in one way or another.’

‘Yes, that is true.’

‘And her father and mother too——’

‘Ha! what about them?’

‘Her mother is a mere cipher—a handsome, helpless, vulgar woman; kind-hearted, but absolutely weak in intellect, and the father is a hard, coarse man, who bullies that unfortunate woman in a disgraceful manner. He is proud of his daughter, but in a tyrannical, despotic way. Fortunately for her (I may say it without boasting), he thinks me the best friend she could have, and places no restraint on her visits to me. Otherwise, she has not a congenial companion.’

‘The benefit must have been immense to her,’ he said. ‘I wondered, after all I had heard of her family, how she came to be even so—well-behaved.’

‘She ought to marry soon. She would soon calm down if she had a kind husband, whom she loved.’

Sebastian remarked drily that she had forcibly expressed her determination to eschew any such relationship.

Mrs. Mallory shook her head, smiling with gentle pity.

‘So she may say, but her father has very different views for her. She would be very helpless, cast upon the world, with her beauty, her hasty disposition, and her large fortune.’

‘Has she a fortune, then?’ he asked, with provoking indifference.

‘Sebastian, that young, warm-hearted girl, with all her enthusiasms and crotchets, ready to fall into the hands of any adventurer, will have at least a hundred thousand pounds.’

Mrs. Mallory spoke with solemn, impressive manner and tones. She was watching her son, who seemed to view the matter with a seriousness that promised well, for he stood, his hands folded behind him, his eyes fixed upon the carpet, profoundly silent and profoundly grave, till, looking up with a sudden, humorous smile, he said,

‘Ma foi! The adventurer who won her, and her hundred thousand pounds, and her frantic ideas on women’s rights, and the execrations of all the other adventurers who had tried, and failed to win her—and her family, who must be most delightful people, I am sure—that adventurer would have driven the very hardest bargain that could well be imagined. I pity him, whoever he may be.... Good night, mother. You must excuse me; I have several things to do to-night. I have my business to learn, you know.’